Adam Habib: Early reflections on Fees Must Fall were a crude caricature

Wits University vice-chancellor Adam Habib says he wrote his new book 'Rebels and Rage – Reflections on #FeesMustFall' as he was concerned with a very crude caricature that came about in the early reflections of the movement.

JOHANNESBURG – Adam Habib, Wits University vice-chancellor, said he wrote his book Rebels and Rage – Reflections on #FeesMustFall because many people didn’t know what happened during that time.

"What worried me about a lot of the reflections on FeesMustFall is how people just didn't know what happened. There was a lot of rhetoric, there was a lot of emotion, but people didn't know what was happening."

He said he was concerned with a very crude caricature that came about in the early reflections of #FeesMustFall.

“One was that the vice-chancellors and your liberal individuals who want to do-in black students and then black students are the radical intelligentsia building a new society. I think it was crude, it was caricatured but I wanted to reflect the complexities of that story.”

Habib added that he was conscious of people recognising the importance of white privilege.

“I’m conscious of people recognising white privilege, where I worry about, is where people have used that to silence white citizens. I have had some white people say to me ‘I can’t comment on that because I’m white’. There is a belief that white people should have no opinion and that is what I’m questioning.”